Current Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola swapped the Bayern Munchen hotseat for England almost seven years ago and, since then, has won almost every possible trophy… aside from the UEFA Champions League (UCL). Manchester City are the favourites to lift the famous trophy this season, and with an eight-game winning run in all competitions ahead of this, confidence should be high coming into this quarter-final first-leg.
After finishing first in their UCL group for a sixth successive season under Guardiola, Manchester City will hope to get a foothold in this tie by extending their impressive 24-game unbeaten run in European home games (W22, D2). In fact, Manchester City can make history here as one more win or draw will set a new record for the longest UCL undefeated home run of any English side!
The man looking to end that run is none other than Thomas Tuchel, the former Chelsea manager who famously defeated Manchester City in the 2021 UCL final. Tuchel’s ambitions of wanting to “win all the trophies” upon joining Bayern Munchen were quickly dashed when Freiburg dumped them out of the DFB Pokal, though a 1-0 league win against the same opponents at the weekend has kept them on course for a record-extending 11th straight Bundesliga crown.
Bayern Munchen have been eliminated at this stage of the UCL in each of the last two seasons and are at risk of failing to reach the semi-final stage for three straight seasons since 2008/09. However the fact that Bayern Munchen have claimed a result from five of their last seven away games against English opponents should boost hopes (W3, D2, L2), as will the fact that they progressed from 63% of their UCL quarter-final ties (W20, L12).
Players to watch: Two players who swapped the Bundesliga for the Premier League (and vice versa) could run the show! Manchester City Erling Haaland scored five goals from seven losing H2Hs with Bayern Munchen as a Dortmund player and he even struck five goals in Manchester City latest UCL game against Leipzig. As for Bayern Munchen, Sadio Mané scored ten times across his 19 meetings with Manchester City whilst at Southampton and Liverpool (W7, D5, L7), including four goals across his last three H2Hs.
Hot stat: Manchester City have previously knocked out Schalke, Dortmund, Leipzig and Mönchengladbach from the UCL – Bayern Munchen are the fifth different German club they’ll face in the knockout phase.
